[Funding Alert] Vegrow Raises $2.5M led by Matrix Partners India & Ankur Capital

Bengaluru-based agritech startup Vegrow on Tuesday announced it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Matrix Partners India and Ankur Capital. The round also saw participation from Better Capital, Titan Capital as well as prominent angel investors including Sanjiv Rangrass, CEO of ITC's Agri Business Division, Rohit MA, Founder of Cloud 9, among others.

The startup founded by Praneeth Kumar, Shobhit Jain, Mrudhukar Batchu and Kiran Naik, is on a mission to build the world's biggest asset-light farm by partnering with small farms on a profit-sharing model.

Vegrow increases the net earnings of partner farmers by leveraging technology across different stages of the farming cycle—it helps them in crop planning, gives them access to quality inputs, monitors their adherence to best practices and ultimately sells their harvest to the right set of buyers.

Commenting on the investment, Praneeth Kumar, co-founder, Vegrow said, "Our collective experience of working on multiple agri initiatives led us to realize that, with the right set of tech interventions, farming can be a highly remunerative business. We validated this hypothesis by farming on our own, and in this process, we also developed a deeper understanding of the nuances of farming."

Shobhit Jain, co-founder, Vegrow added, "From the humble beginning of farming ourselves, we now see a vision of becoming the world's largest farmer. We are partnering with farmers and building value chains for identified commodities. We are investing in farm tech and supply chain tech to help us realise a higher value for our farmers, all of this is rallied around a single point agenda which is to build and serve India's largest farmer community."

Speaking on the latest development, Ritu Verma, co-founder and managing partner, Ankur Capital said, "We are excited to kickoff of our second fund by partnering with Vegrow. We have spent a lot of time in the agtech sector and most solutions do not get to the heart of the challenge - managing demand led production across fragmented farms. The teams' depth of understanding the market, coupled with their approach to use technology to drive the scale is what we feel sets them apart. We look forward to be a part of the next phase of their journey and are excited to be partnering with Matrix and other investors and leveraging their experiences to build the farms of tomorrow."

"Agriculture is one of India's largest industries, and the lack of organization in the space clearly outlines the vast opportunity available. Vegrow's model of aggregating fragmented farms, to help unlock economies of scale with technology-led interventions, significantly increases the earning potential of their partner farmers. We are excited to partner with the founders - Praneeth, Shobhit, Mrudhukar and Kiran, and our co-investors to help build the world's biggest asset-light farm," added Tarun Davda, managing director, Matrix India.